


the taste of your smile

by walking_through_autumn



Category: Tokyo Ghoul
Genre: Gen, M/M, spoilers for chapter 68
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-14
Updated: 2016-03-14
Packaged: 2018-05-26 16:02:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,022
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6246538
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/walking_through_autumn/pseuds/walking_through_autumn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the <i>Anteiku</i> raid, Kaneki lives a different life every morning he wakes up. </p><p>Can be read as HideKane if you so wish.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the taste of your smile

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Hold Me Tight and Tell Me You'll Miss Me (What Dreams May Come Remix)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/193753) by [pocky_slash](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pocky_slash/pseuds/pocky_slash). 



When Kaneki wakes up, he experiences a moment of dizzying disorientation before there is a hand on his shoulder bringing him to the present.

“Hey, buddy. You alright?”

Kaneki blinks against the morning sun streaming into his room, then the figure that has moved before him to block the sunlight, a large figure whose face is shadowed and whose voice is familiar. The hand is back on his shoulder.

“Hide,” he says, voice muzzy from sleep and sour with morning breath.

He sees Hide’s lips turn up in a smile. The weight of his hand leaves Kaneki’s shoulder, and its residual warmth adds to the sultry burn of summer. He shifts, feeling the sweat sticking his shirt to his skin, and for a moment he chases the cold dampness that his dreams had been made of. There was a lot of water, he recalls, and a smell like rot and urine.

“Nightmare?” Hide asks. He sits on Kaneki’s bed and leans against his stomach.

Kaneki hums, his eyes closing again. He says, “I guess.” Pauses, then says with a voice as genuine as he can make it, “I’m okay now.”

Hide scrutinises him, then smiles as bright as the sunlight making its presence felt in his room. “Alright,” he says.

.

He sips his coffee, and thinks, wonderingly, that Hide has become better at making it even though he still burns eggs every time he tries to cook.

“Lecture is cancelled today,” Hide announces, flopping down in his seat with his phone in his hand. “Professor’s sick. Must be the heat.”

“Must be,” Kaneki agrees. Early October, and the weather is insisting it is end July, with the sound of accompanying crickets. He browses through the newspapers and shakes his head when he sees yet another article about the announced increase in goods tax. “What are you going to do today, then?”

Hide digs into his cereal and crunches with gusto. “Well, I was thinking we could go to the bookstore. The one you like,” he adds, when Kaneki looks up with interest. “I’ve wanted to try the new seasonal cake in that bookstore’s café for the longest time.”

“So you’re suggesting going there for your stomach,” Kaneki teases.

Hide glares, which looks more like a pout. “You can’t expect me to stay around all those…those… _books_ without a snack to fortify me!” he says with a shudder.

Kaneki smiles, imagining Hide breaking out into hives at the sight and smell of books. The banter is familiar to him, words they throw back and forth every time one of them suggests going to the bookstore, with both of them knowing they will end up in the café, Hide munching on a snack and flipping through his comic while Kaneki starts his latest read with a cup of black coffee.

Hide’s mischievous, answering smile is framed by the black and white tiles of their kitchen wall, endlessly repeated like a giant chessboard. Kaneki stares at it, realizing with a vague sort of amazement that the tiles are flawless, nary a crack in them. Nausea begins in his gut, a taste like bile combined with blood at the back of his throat.

“Kaneki? Hello? Earth to Kaneki Ken?”

He looks away from the wall to see Hide waving a hand in front of his face, his light tone betrayed by the worry in his eyes. Kaneki jolts a little, some coffee sloshing out of his mug onto his hand.

Hide tuts and grabs some tissues to wipe away the spilled liquid. “You okay, bud?” he asks again.

Kaneki looks at the wall. It gleams back at him. He looks away and says, “Yeah, of course.” He smiles when Hide seems unconvinced. “I’m okay,” he says gently, pulling his hand out of Hide’s grip and gripping the handle of his mug again.

.

On days when Hide has classes, he cycles to the university after breakfast and Kaneki is left to read whatever he pleases. Hide had an abhorrently small collection of books, which they remedied after Kaneki moved in with him. When he feels like it he goes out for a walk, marvelling at how something so simple as sweat rolling off his forehead can feel so good. He avoids the CCG, though the times he brushes past investigators they do not recognise him. He thinks this is probably what it means to live and let live. At night, after his part-time job, Hide brings home takeout for his own dinner, and Kaneki puts on the kettle to make coffee for them.

On days when Hide does not have classes, or when class is unexpectedly cancelled like this day’s was, they do whatever Hide fancies, which has become a mixture of what Hide and Kaneki both fancy. The long, meandering walk to the bookstore is quiet and satisfying, as they weave through a residential district and past a local cemetery. The silence between them is respectful, as Kaneki gazes out at the rows of tombstones and Hide gives him the time he needs.

“Oh,” Kaneki breathes.

“Hmm?” The sound Hide makes is nearly lost in the heat.

Kaneki barely registers the question, his eyes fixed on the splash of red in the field next to the cemetery. He wanders closer without quite meaning to, the red taking shape the closer he gets to it. In the blazing heat the thin red petals seem vibrant and lush with life.

He knows these flowers. He had seen them in his dreams.

“Ohhh,” Hide says from beside him. Kaneki isn’t even aware that Hide had followed him. “Spider lilies. A miracle they even bloomed with this blasted heat.”

Kaneki nods in agreement and crouches, extending one tentative finger to touch a petal. It is soft, a gentle brush against his finger, and it springs back into place after Kaneki lifts his finger. It is heartbreakingly beautiful.

“Means autumn is coming,” Hide says. Kaneki can hear the smile in his voice.

“That’s good then, I guess,” Kaneki says. He catches a whiff from the flowers and thinks of dead people, all their bones and flesh and blood becoming food for the flowers to bloom so bright. A mountain of corpses with cracked masks and red eyes staring, unseeing.

Hide touches his wrist, and it is oddly cool against Kaneki’s flesh. He fights back a shudder and turns away from the flowers.

.

The layout of the bookstore is comforting. Hide had found and showed it to Kaneki long ago, and it has become Kaneki’s favourite, far more so than the big bookstores closer to the city center. The owner greets them with a fond smile and leaves them to their browsing among the clean smell of wood and paper, the comforting hum of customers browsing through new, fantastic worlds.

Kaneki picks up a few of the new releases. There is a good mixture of genres he enjoys, and he thinks Hide might like the mystery novel he has picked up as well. He allows his feet to take him wandering and they stop at the bestseller section, with two rows dedicated to one of his favourite writers.

“Ah, Takatsuki Sen,” the owner says, offering an apologetic smile when Kaneki jumps a little from the unexpected voice. “I hear she’s working on a new book. You have read _McGuffin_ , I’m sure?”

“Yes,” Kaneki says with a polite nod, “I did. I enjoyed it quite a bit. I look forward to the release of the new book.”

“I can reserve a copy for you here, if you’d like that?” the owner asks.

Kaneki smiles and agrees to leave his details at the counter later, which is a cue for the owner to go assist his other customers. He looks back at the rows of books, and wonders whether she is going to continue her allegory with ghouls, the one she started with _McGuffin_. It brought him some comfort, once. He’s not sure how he will feel if her new work is about ghouls again. Touching the spine of her book, he wonders at the regret and anguish he feels.

.

Hide laughs in delight, reading his comic and eating the cake he has been craving. His laughter is something Kaneki doesn’t think he can get tired of, a sound that slowly erodes away the uncertainty that still sits in him like an anchor. There was once he chose to never hear that sound again. Kaneki, savouring the fragrance of the coffee, smiles over the rim at Hide and opens his mouth to tease him.

“We should visit _Anteiku_ again soon” is what he says instead.

Hide blinks and looks up at him slowly.

It might not have been what he intended to say, but Kaneki realizes the sentiment is true. The nostalgia and desperation begin to gnaw at him, like a hunger that has only just been noticed. “Today, maybe. After we finish here,” he suggests, words rushing out of him.

The expression on Hide’s face is first pained, then unbearably gentle. Kaneki watches his face change with an anxiety that roots cold and deep in his gut.

“Kaneki – ” he says.

“They’re doing okay, aren’t they? Yoshimura, and Touka, and Yomo, and everyone,” Kaneki says quickly, cutting Hide off. Words, dammed up in him, escape with unthinkable pressure. “They must be okay. We should – we should go see them, drink some – you like the cappuccino there, don’t you?”

Hide’s mouth closes and his lips press together, like he is trying to hide their trembling.

“Sure,” he finally says. “We can do that.”

Kaneki nods and takes another sip of his coffee. It is cooling and no longer scalds his tongue. He focuses on the low murmur and occasional chuckle in the café, the sound of liquid poured from kettle to cup and the tinkling of the bell above the café’s door.

“I have dreams,” Kaneki begins. He looks away from Hide, out of the café’s window to where the sunlight presses down on Tokyo’s streets, heat turning everything indistinct. Without looking back at Hide, he continues, “Dreams about if we hadn’t found an escape route, that night. Do you remember? You said – you told me to eat you.”

Hide remains silent. Kaneki gulps down another mouthful of coffee, its bitter fragrance sweet on his tongue. “I dream about – about eating you, and fighting…a reaper. A man in a white coat surrounded by bodies. You tasted – you tasted – ”

Out of the corner of his eye, he can see Hide reaching for him, an arm tanned by the summer sun and free of the dark CCG armour. The café has faded from his view except for his friend seated opposite him, mouth open like he is silently pleading.

“You tasted sweet,” Kaneki whispers, the taste in his mouth changing from coffee to human flesh.

He stands up, stumbling away from the table and knocking all the books off. There is a loud clatter and what sounds like the splintering of glass. He hears Hide shouting, “Buddy, Kaneki, hey, stay with me!” and the afternoon sun from outside the window has blurred with the warm light of the café, blurred with screams from its patrons, and he thinks he also hears a number, like 240, and the screaming sounds like it is coming from his own throat and he can feel liquid trailing down his cheek, consistency thick and sticky like blood –

.

When Kaneki wakes up, he experiences a moment of dizzying disorientation before there is a hand on his shoulder bringing him to the present.

“Hey, buddy. You alright?”

The morning light is streaming through his window, gentle and welcoming like a mother’s embrace. Kaneki stares at it, hands tangled in sheets damp with his sweat.

“Hide,” he says with a voice that is hoarse and scratchy, like he had been screaming the whole night.

There is a figure before him, a dark figure that has moved to block the light. The hand on his shoulder feels like a dead weight.

“Yeah, it’s me,” Hide says, a small smile evident in his voice. “Nightmare?”

Kaneki closes his eyes slowly and wonders what to answer.

**Author's Note:**

> Pocky-slash wrote a beautiful Dead Poets Society fic which I have never managed to recover from. Credit goes to their fic for the structure and idea. This is posted with the kind blanket permission they have given for remixes of their fics. (Pocky-slash, if you see this and would like me to take it down, please let me know!)
> 
> Comments are always appreciated :)


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